This is just an extension of a tied sale. Tying agreements are already illegal under anti-trust law. The only difference here is that Lexmark (and other compa

This is just an extension of a tied sale. Tying agreements are already illegal under anti-trust law. The only difference here is that Lexmark (and other companies) are skipping the contract/agreement part of it and going directly to forcing the hand of the consumer by adding new changes and inserting technology that has no other purpose than to specifically limit the consumer to purchase a related product (in this case, ink), where no such restriction previously existed and therefore is not naturally occurring. This is even worse than a regular tied sale arrangement because the consumer never agrees to it. The only wrinkle I can see is that the tied sale laws seem to relate to unrelated products or services. The ink that goes with the printer is obviously related, but I think that's irrelevant here because of the history of inkjet printers. We all know that there never used to be any inherent, natural limitation to obtaining ink from another manufacturer as long as it was designed specifically for your make and model. The new changes were deliberately put in by Lexmark and other printer manufacturers for the sole purpose of restraining trade/commerce. That is blatantly in violation of anti-trust law.